The present invention relates broadly to tracking systems, and in particular to an augmented tracking apparatus for tracking and predicting the future position of a moving aircraft.
In the prior art, it is well known that tracking accuracy in air-to-air operation deteriorates under stress of combat when disturbed systems are used, because of the basic mechanization which employs aircraft body rates in the lead angle computation and is a function of the pilot-airframe response. The director systems, in which all computations are made in terms of the existing line of sight rates available from the attacking plane's target tracking instrumentation, is less influenced by the dynamics of the pilot and the airframe.
In the prior art, director systems employed gimballed sensors wherein the gimbal servo noise degraded system performance. Director systems also employed Radar angle trackers wherein Radar tracking noise degraded system performance. Principally because of system lags associated with filtering the gimbal servo and Radar tracking noise, the steering accuracies of prior-art director systems are not as improved over disturbed systems as might be expected.